Dan Muirhead, St. Aloysius’ shortstop, reaches for the ball on a throwdown as Myrtle’s David Hill is safe at second with a steal.(The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[05/10/02]Dustin Hill’s pitches shimmied and shook.

Myrtle’s hits dinked and doinked.

And St. Aloysius was left rocked and reeling in Game 1 of the Class 1A state championship series Thursday night in front of more than 1,000 fans at Bazinsky Field.

Hill had 13 strikeouts and held the Flashes (23-5) to three hits in a complete-game win, and the Hawks (25-8) backed him with 10 hits mostly bloopers and seeing-eye grounders to claim a 7-3 win and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.

Game 2 is Saturday at Myrtle at 3 p.m. If St. Al wins, Game 3 will be Monday at 7 p.m. at Bazinsky.

“… (A)s bad as we played … we still only lost by four runs,” St. Al coach Joe Graves said. “We’re going to come back Saturday, Aaron (George) is going to throw a good ballgame, and we’re going to come back here Monday and play for the championship.”

Hill, a sophomore left-hander, kept St. Al off-balance with a biting fastball that left the Flashes flailing at pitches in the dirt and frustrated as they returned to the dugout.

Only three St. Al batters reached base with less than two outs.

“My fastball was breaking as much as my curveball was,” Hill said. “Everything was working for me tonight. This crowd was crazy and it got me pumped up even more.”

Myrtle’s batters also hit their spots, putting hits in every nook and cranny the Flashes left open. The Hawks play on a 300-foot field but have only one home run this season, and they played a perfect brand of smallball Thursday.

“We’ve never played that kind of baseball before. That’s a bunt-and-slash team that doesn’t have any power … They didn’t hit the ball over 250 feet,” said St. Al right fielder Charlie Amborn, who went 2-for-3 with a triple and an RBI single, and also threw a runner out at the plate in the fifth. “The first few innings, we were playing too deep.”

After a two-out error extended the third inning, Myrtle went up 3-0.

St. Al pitcher Jason Brown cruised through the first 22/3 innings, but got into his first jam when Myrtle second baseman Robby Whitehorn dropped a drag bunt along the first-base line.

Hill and Jason Butler followed with RBI singles as St. Al mixed in an error and a wild pitch, and Nathan Cobb capped the inning with a bloop double to left.

“We were fortunate to find some holes,” Myrtle coach Robert Gordon said. “Those came at big times, and that’s the reason we (won).”

St. Al got its first hit in the bottom of the third when Amborn doubled to right-center, and scored on an error. A passed ball and two wild pitches scratched another run for St. Al and cut it to 3-2, but Myrtle answered with one in the fourth on Corey Yager’s RBI single and extended the lead to 6-2 in the fifth.

Four straight singles started the fifth-inning rally two of St. Al’s five errors helped it along.

“I think I just lost confidence in myself … The first inning seemed great, and then the bottom just fell out,” said Brown, who needed only five pitches to get through the first inning but issued five walks in the game. “They kept sticking the bat up there and just barely making it into the gaps.”

St. Al cut it to 6-3 in the fifth when Alex Frisbee reached base on a passed-ball third strike, advanced to third on an errant pickoff throw and scored on Amborn’s RBI single.

The rally ended when Amborn was picked off second, and Myrtle added a run in the sixth as it utilized another weapon speed.

The Hawks stole three bases in the inning, including two when Brown had picked runners off.

“They figured me out,” Brown said of his pickoff move.

St. Al had runners on in each of the last two innings, but never got them past first base. Hill got out of each inning with a fielder’s choice and a strikeout.

Although the Hawks dominated Game 1, neither team was expecting a similar romp on Saturday.

George (11-1), St. Al’s ace, will try to extend the Flashes’ season, while Myrtle will counter with Gary Hood (9-2).

“This thing is far from over,” Gordon said. “We’d like to win it at our place … but it’s going to be a tough task.”